(5) It is best, with Ewald, to take the two clauses as interrogative, Shall he not return into the land of Egypt? And shall not the Assyrian, &c.? (See Notes on Hosea 8:13; Hosea 10:3-6. Comp. also Hosea 11:11.)

Return--i.e., to God.

Verse 5. - He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return. These words sound like an announcement that the season of Divine grace, so long extended to that sin-laden people, had at length expired; and that on account of their stubborn and on-grateful rebellion against Jehovah they would be forced, to go into exile and become subject to the monarch of Assyria.

(1) They had been threatened with a return to Egypt and its bondage in Hosea 8:13, "They shall return to Egypt;" and Hosea 9:3, "Ephraim shall return to Egypt;" vet now God, without any change of purpose, changes his mode of procedure, not allowing them to return to Egypt, but dooming them to a worse bondage under the Assyrians.

(2) Having been tributary to Assyria from the time of Menahem, they had revolted and applied to Egypt for help; now, however, no help would be permitted to come from Egypt nor even an opportunity of applying for it allowed. The power of Assyria would be paramount; instead, therefore, of native kings and Egyptian auxiliaries, Israel would have to submit to that iron yoke. However desirous of returning to Egypt, they would have neither the power nor the privilege of doing so. And this poor privilege of a choice of masters they were refused as a just retribution, because they had not repented of their sin and returned to God. Various methods have been resorted to, to harmonize the apparent contradiction alluded to, that is, between the affirmative and negative statements about Israel's return into Egypt.

(1) Dathe, Eichhorn, and De Wette agree with the LXX. in reading לו instead of לא, and connecting it with the preceding verse; but the other versions, as well as the manuscripts, support the received text.

(2) Jerome and Rosenmüller explain it of the people's desire to conclude an alliance with Egypt in order to throw off the yoke of Assyria, being frustrated by the superior power of the latter; thus the sense is that they shall not return any more to Egypt, as they had lately done by their ambassadors, to seek help from that land or its people. Then he assigns the reason why they would not again send ambassadors to Egypt for the purpose indicated, because the Assyrian alone would be their king. The objection to this is that lo yashubu must refer to the whole people rather than to their ambassador going to and fro between the countries.

(3) Ewald, Maurer, and others cut the knot by taking lo interrogatively, as if it were halo, and thus equivalent to an affirmative, i.e. "Shall they not return to Egypt and the Assyrian be their king?" The expected answer would be in the affirmative. Neither grammar nor context sanctions this interrogative sense.

(4) According to Hitzig, Keil, Simson, and others, we are to understand Egypt in the previous places, viz. Hosea 8:13 and Hosea 9:3, as received of the land of bondage, where in the present passage the typical sense is inadmissible, owing to the contrast with Assyria. Into Egypt Israel should not return, lest the object of the Exodus might seem frustrated, but a worse lot lay before them - another and harder bondage awaited them; the King of Assyria would be their king and reign over them, and all because of their impenitence and refusal to return to Jehovah. The following is the explanation of Kimchi: "They should not have returned to the land of Egypt to seek help; I had already said to them, 'Ye shall henceforth return no more that way;' for if they had returned to me, they would not have needed help from Egypt. And against their will Assyria rules over them, and they serve him and send him a present year by year. And why is all this? Because they refused, etc.; as if he said (they refused) to return to me; for if they had returned to me, foreign kings (literally, 'kings of the nations') would not have ruled ever them, but they would have ruled over the nations as they had done in the days of David and Solomon, when they did my will; and so have I assured them, 'Thou shall reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.'" The root of מאן is cognate with מנע, to hold back, refuse; the le strengthens the connection of the objectival infinitive with the governing verb; the ellipsis of אֵלֶי is obvious.

11:1-7 When Israel were weak and helpless as children, foolish and froward as children, then God loved them; he bore them as the nurse does the sucking child, nourished them, and suffered their manners. All who are grown up, ought often to reflect upon the goodness of God to them in their childhood. He took care of them, took pains with them, not only as a father, or a tutor, but as a mother, or nurse. When they were in the wilderness, God showed them the way in which they should go, and bore them up, taking them by the arms. He taught them the way of his commandments by the ceremonial law given by Moses. He took them by the arms, to guide them, that they might not stray, and to hold them up, that they might not stumble and fall. God's spiritual Israel are all thus supported. It is God's work to draw poor souls to himself; and none can come to him except he draw them. With bands of love; this word signifies stronger cords than the former. He eased them of the burdens they had long groaned under. Israel is very ungrateful to God. God's counsels would have saved them, but their own counsels ruined them. They backslide; there is no hold of them, no stedfastness in them. They backslide from me, from God, the chief good. They are bent to backslide; they are ready to sin; they are forward to close with every temptation. Their hearts are fully set in them to do evil. Those only are truly happy, whom the Lord teaches by his Spirit, upholds by his power, and causes to walk in his ways. By his grace he takes away the love and dominion of sin, and creates a desire for the blessed feast of the gospel, that they may feed thereon, and live for ever.He shall not return into the land of Egypt,.... Ephraim or Israel, the ten tribes: and the Septuagint and Arabic versions express them by name, though they give a wrong sense of the words, rendering them, "and Ephraim dwelt in Egypt"; he did so indeed with the other tribes formerly; but here it is said he shall not go thither again to be a captive there, but shall go into bondage more severe than that in Egypt, even into captivity in Assyria: rather the sense is, they should not go thither for shelter, at least not as a body, though some few of them might, as in Hosea 9:3; the far greater part of them should he carried captive by the Assyrians: or they should not return to Egypt to seek for help and assistence, as they had done; either they ought not to do it, nor would there be any need of it, did they but return to the Lord, as Kimchi observes; or rather they should now be so straitly shut up in Samaria, besieged so closely by the enemy, or else carried into distant lands, that, if they would, they could not apply to Egypt for relief;

but the Assyrian shall be his king; the king of Assyria shall be king over the ten tribes, whether they want him or not; they shall be forced to acknowledge him as their king, and be subject to him, being taken and carried captive into his land:

because they refused to return: to the Lord, from whom they had backslidden, and to his pure worship, word, and ordinances, they had departed from, setting up the calves at Dan and Bethel; they refused to relinquish worshipping idols instead of the true God; thus ungratefully behaving to him for all the above favours bestowed upon them; wherefore they are righteously threatened with captivity and bondage in Assyria.